AIM will shut down after 20 years • Hacker News Board

Re: AIM will shut down after 20 years

#151

Post by rhizome » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 5:49 PM UTC

tritium wrote: post #111

empath75 wrote: post #28

5 years ago, aol still used aim internally for everything that people use slack for today. Group chats, bots, notifications for builds, etc, etc. Then gradually individual teams picked up slack and within maybe 18 months, we went from 100% aim to a gigantic corporate slack team. That was the end of AIM, I think. Aol and yahoo both use gmail internally so I suspect they’re going to shitcan their email services eventua…

Is there a word for what one might refer to as "institutional/organizational burnout"? I feel like it's related to the age of leadership and trends in the current cult of personality du jour, and its interaction with promotion, branding and marketing. Shit happens, and the inertia of social groups is tough to steer over time, as sensibilities and fashions change, people get old, and graduating classes of the current…

"Migration"

Re: AIM will shut down after 20 years

#152

Post by ImSkeptical » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 5:49 PM UTC

SapphireSun wrote: post #149

menerva wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so isn't this capitalism working as it should? they literally killed their own golden goose with stupidity. why shouldn't others disrupt corrupt crap business?

It's a strange feature of an economic system where the incentives require that successful participants blow themselves up. It requires that new=good and old=bad.

It's not required that successful businesses blow themselves up, but if they do make poor choices, they will suffer, and perhaps pay with their existence, for those choices.

Re: AIM will shut down after 20 years

#153

Post by fencepost » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 5:50 PM UTC

santaclaus wrote: post #84

j45 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have my ICQ id.. If only I could remember the password

> I have my ICQ id The real important question is how many digits.

Low 8 digits, though I had an earlier one I lost the password to.

sigh

Re: AIM will shut down after 20 years

#154

Post by stale2002 » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 5:51 PM UTC

menerva wrote: post #117

snarf21 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is hard to move the ball forward when you reorg every year and have minor layoffs almost every year to keep OIBDA moving in the right direction so the execs get larger bonuses. So many people were in self preservation mode with no interest in anything that was "risky" and might put their bonus at risk. Similar things happened with how they managed MapQuest. Also, if you think they missed a chance on AIM, it is not…

so isn't this capitalism working as it should? they literally killed their own golden goose with stupidity. why shouldn't others disrupt corrupt crap business?

It is capitalism working as it should.

But it is still sad to see something that was such an important part of internet culture and history die like this.

But perhaps that is just the nostalgia speaking.

Re: AIM will shut down after 20 years

#155

Post by praneshp » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 5:51 PM UTC

foo101 wrote: post #148

the_common_man wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but it's usually against corporate policy and reason to fire the person. This has happened in companies I have worked in the past. People take print outs and take them outside office. This is against company policy for confidential documents).

What kind of companies are these? I have worked in a dozen companies so far and in not one of them using GMail for personal use was against the corporate policy.

GP clearly says "gmail, for work".

I think a vast majority of companies would fire (at least, call it out as against policy) if you just went ahead and used gmail for work emails because the official one is crappy.

Re: AIM will shut down after 20 years

#156

Post by pkamb » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 5:55 PM UTC

A cheap AIM acquisition and app-based relaunch would be cool for whoever's working on the next cool/quirky/ephemeral/nostalgic/teen app like snapchat or "tbh".

Re: AIM will shut down after 20 years

#157

Post by empath75 » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 5:55 PM UTC

ams6110 wrote: post #128

the_common_man wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which of the below do you mean: a) Employees of yahoo using gmail for personal purposes? b) Yahoo, the company, uses gmail c) @yahoo.com will be powered by gmail in the future as a white labeled product? (Each of the above is alarming in it's own way)

I don't know about Yahoo, but in other organizations I've seen employees using gmail, for work, because it's more convenient than the corporate/enterprise email platform.

Aol, at least, migrated their corporate email to gmail several years ago. Before that, it was exchange.

Re: AIM will shut down after 20 years

#158

Post by gh02t » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 5:58 PM UTC

drngdds wrote: post #113

I miss dedicated IM services like AIM. They had a certain dynamic that Facebook Messenger (or similar) and SMS lack. On AIM, logging in was an active choice and it signaled that you were up for a conversation. With Facebook Messenger, everyone who has the app is always "online." This means that: a) I get messages from people I don't want to have a conversation with at the moment and it seems rude if I ignore them, be…

> With Facebook Messenger, everyone who has the app is always "online."

Not exactly, FBM lets you differentiate between people who are "active", as in they are currently using FBM, vs. "last seen x hours ago." The difference from AIM is that being active vs. inactive does not necessarily correspond to whether or not you are up for an engaged conversation, and also that you don't directly control your status since it's automatic. There is also a way to set yourself to appear offline, though it's kinda convoluted. I 100% agree though that finer controls over your status like back in the good old days of AIM would be really nice.

Re: AIM will shut down after 20 years

#159

Post by chrischen » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 6:05 PM UTC

I remember when iPhone was kicking off and MSN Messenger and other popular desktop chat apps had crappy iPhone versions.

If only they kept at it they’d still be in play.

Re: AIM will shut down after 20 years

#160

Post by abakker » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 6:07 PM UTC

SapphireSun wrote: post #149

menerva wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so isn't this capitalism working as it should? they literally killed their own golden goose with stupidity. why shouldn't others disrupt corrupt crap business?

It's a strange feature of an economic system where the incentives require that successful participants blow themselves up. It requires that new=good and old=bad.

In technology especially, inertia is a liability. Not really surprising that most tech companies don't make it that long.

What is more surprising is that our attachment to institutions includes for-profit businesses. Really, we should, as customers/consumers, just go with the best service, but culturally we can't help but think that something is lost when an old, useless company goes away.